Page 11 of A Recipe for Love
‘Veronica thought it was better to keep doing things normally,’ Darcy explained.
‘Doing thingsproperly,’ Veronica corrected.
‘Is there coffee?’ Darcy was staring at her crockery like she was unsure what to do next.
Flinty took the cup from her hand. ‘You sit down, petal. I’ll do a cafetiere.’
Darcy slumped back into her chair. Bella stood up. ‘I’ll help.’
Veronica shook her head. ‘Flinty has everything in hand.’
Flinty was laying out serving dishes on the dresser at the far end of the room. She stopped as Bella approached. ‘You sit down, love. I can manage.’
Bella turned back towards the table. Veronica was glaring at her. ‘I said that Flinty has everything in hand.’
Bella sensed she’d made a terrible faux pas but she was hazy on how. It seemed incredibly rude not to help when one person was doing all the work, even if it was their job. And hadn’t Adam said Flinty was retired? She found herself stuck in no man’s land, between Flinty busying herself at the dresser, and the family sitting stock still and silent at the table.
‘I’ll bring some coffee and your melon,’ Flinty told Darcy, as she set down a teapot on the table. ‘You can help yourself to the rest.’
Bella stepped back towards the array of food laid out for them. She’d worked in hotels that put on a less fulsome breakfast buffet. She picked up a plate.
‘The laird goes first.’
‘Right. And I walk two paces behind him, do I?’ Bella laughed as she turned, and stopped when she saw Veronica’s face.
‘I’m sure that’s not necessary, but there is a proper order.’
Bella glanced at Adam. ‘It’s fine.’ He sounded exhausted. ‘We’re all adapting a bit today, aren’t we?’
He ushered Bella in front of him.
She helped herself to crispy bacon and a light fluffy white roll. Adam hadn’t picked anything up. ‘You need to eat something.’
‘I don’t know what…’
She handed him her plate. ‘Take this. I’ll go again.’
As she took her seat next to Darcy, Flinty was putting a plate of melon and a cafetiere down in front of the second Lady Lowbridge. She stared at it with the same empty expression Adam was wearing.
‘I was going to call Xander down so you could tell him your news. But…’
Adam squeezed her hand. ‘He’s gone.’
‘I won’t believe it.’ She looked at Bella as if seeing her for the first time. ‘Oh, I am sorry. We should offer you a drink.’
Bella shook her head. ‘I’ve got tea.’
‘Right. Good. Bit early for something stronger.’
It wasn’t even eight a.m. ‘It is a bit,’ Bella agreed. ‘How long were you married?’
‘Fifteen years. Well, it would have been fifteen in June.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m so sorry. I keep thinking he’ll be down in a moment. The smell of bacon always gets him down for breakfast.’ She glanced towards the door. ‘It’s just that I was in the next room. I’d called through to him to ask if he’d seen my address book because it wasn’t by the telephone, and I don’t know why I wanted it, but I needed to call the plumber about that tap and his number is in my cell, but I was going to phone on the landline so I didn’t quite think of that, and anyway, Xander yelled back that it wasn’t in the estate office, and why on earth would I think it might be? And then there was this sort of moan and a crash and…’ She stopped. ‘I was just talking to him, you see.’
Bella did see. It was utterly unfair and entirely inexplicable that someone could be right there and then, at the very next moment, not there at all. ‘I’m sorry.’
Darcy sipped her coffee and winced slightly at the heat. ‘That’s kind.’
They completed their breakfast in silence. Adam, Bella was relieved to see, did eat his sandwich. Darcy did little more than push her melon around the plate, before she retreated to her room. Veronica’s appetite appeared unaffected by the death of her son. Eventually she drained her teacup, dabbed her white napkin precisely to the corners of her lips and announced that she must get on. ‘I shall need you in the estate office,’ she told Adam ‘There are arrangements to be made.’
